The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-10-27
SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY.


The Philadelphia truss factories
turn out over 200. 900 trusses per year.
Expert girls making the first quail
ity of mems linen collars can. in the
Troy factories, for instance, earn from
S25 to $35 per week.
1t has been ascertained that
numbing action, similar to that of
cocaine, is produced by the external
application to the body of the WELL
known intoxicating drink of the South
Sea Islanders called kava.
Some unpublished letters from
Luther to Brenz and five from Melanc-
thon to the Swabian reformer Lach-
mann have been found in an old desk
in school at Heilbronn.
The respectable sum of 800, 900 a
year is expended by the government of
Cuba for chemical analyses in cases of
suspected poisoning and all kinds of
medico-legal Investigations. s.-Arkan-
saa1 Traveller.
The interest on the legacy of ten
thousand dollars, bequeathed to the
Paris Academy of Sciences by Giffard,
the well known inventor, will be used
to assist worthy men of learning who
are in temporary financial straits.
| MIR. G. Murray, who recently made
a botanical trip to the West Indian
island of Grenada, found the razor
grass in one place so thick and sharp
that in passing through it his hands. face
and wrists were scanned with bleeding
cuts.
Recent delicate scientific expert
ments have discovered the fact that the
surface of the land is never absolutely
at rest for more than thirty hours at a
time. Thus, those great earthquakes
which make epochs in history are mere
ly extreme cases of forces that seldom
sleep.-Public Opinion.
How much rain must fall in the
coarse of the day to make it rainy
day in the meteorological sensep This
question has been discussed a good
deal by persons interested in weather
science, but not yet determined authori-
tatively. The weight of opinion seems
to be that rainfall amounting at
least to the one-hundredth part of an
inch is necessary to make rainy day.
N Y Ledger.
During the past season $4,000, 900
cucumbers have been picked in one
factory at fredericksburg, Va. One
acre will produce on an average 100,-
600 cucumbers, and they sell readily
in the city at 80 cents per 1000 They
are usually picked when not more than
an inch or an inch and half long.
One person can gather in 5000 in a
day.
The Prussian society for the pro-
motion of industry has offered two
prizes, the competition for one to close
with 1887, and for the other with 1888.
The first prize is about $3.50, for the
most exhaustive critical comparison Of
all kinds of existing bronze, tombac
and brass alloys, used or recommended
for machinery; the second is 81, $50 for
the best work on light and heat radi-
alton of burning gases. .-ArkansaD
Traveller.
A French savant has propounded a
, theory that coal was originally a liquid
generated by the decomposition of in
, ferior vegetation in an atmosphere
highly charged with earbonic acid.
/ The carbon of the jelly-like mass just
, formed, after passing through various
, transformations into asphalt, petrol
, cum, bitumen, etc., finally assumed the
, form of coal. The author cites various
facts connected with the occurrence OF
, coal which, he thinks are better ex-
: planned on this theory than by the
Q usual one. Public Opinion.
, Mr.. Desire Chamay, the Central
t American traveller. asserts that the
I concentric circles shown in logs ct ma
, hogany, and many other tropical woods
9 correspond to SO many months Of
r growth, rather than to one year each,
: as is generally supposed. 'In my first
t expedition to Palenque," he says, sin
1859, had the east side of the palace
= cleared of its dense vegetation. to Sc.
9 cure good photograph. Consequent.
g ly the trees that have grown up since
i Cup to 1882 can not be more thar
i twenty-five years old. Now, one OF
d the cuttings, measuring some two feet
9 in diameter. had upward of two hund
9 red and thirty concentric circles. ~. Y
o Ledger.
z The Mississippi Valley Lunaberma'
- - thinks that the output of the mills OF
, = streams tributary to the Upper Missis
i. sippi which depend upon water TO fioa
their logs to them will this year be from
SO to so per cent less than common
But the same lack of rain has dimin
le ished the ability of the farmers, and 0
IS those who live by trading with tn
IS farmers, tc buy lumber. to almost al
N equal extent in considerable part o
ir the region to which the lumber Is com